Raphael Wallfisch
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ALSO AVAILABLE BY RAPHAEL WALLFISCH ON NIMBUS Raphael Wallfisch NI 5763 Edward Elgar, Cello Concerto; Frank Bridge, Oration; Gustav Holst, Invocation Northern Chamber Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Dickins conductor NI 5764/5 Dmitri Shostakovich, Complete works for cello BBC Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins conductor. John York piano NI 5471 Nicholas Maw, Sonata Notturna English String Orchestra, William Boughton conductor NI 5746 John Metcalf, Cello Symphony English Symphony Orchestra, William Boughton conductor NI 5741/2 Ludwig van Beethoven, Complete Sonatas and Variations for cello and piano John York piano NI 5806 Zemlinsky, Cello Sonata (1894); Sonatas by Korngold & Goldmark John York piano NI 5815 20th Century works for Cello and Strings Lutoslawski, Maconchy, Hindemith, Patterson, Kopytman Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, William Boughton conductor NI 5816 Serge Prokofiev, Concertino & Cinq Mélodies; Rodion Shchedrin, Parabola Concertante Southbank Sinfonia, Simon Over conductor Weber NI 5831 Rodion Shchedrin, Music for Cello and Piano Grand pot-pourri Rodion Shchedrin piano NI 5848 C.P.E Bach, Concertos for violoncello strings and basso continuo Spohr Scottish Ensemble, Jonathan Morton artistic director Concerto in A minor NI 5862 Frédéric Chopin, Cello Sonata; Sonatas by Simon Laks & Karol Szymanowski John York piano Reicha Concerto in A major 8 NI 5868 NI 5868 1 Raphael Wallfisch, cello Northern Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director and Leader, Nicholas Ward Louis Spohr (1784-1859) Violin Concerto no.8, in A minor Op.47 (1816) 22.40 ‘in modo di scena cantante’ arranged for cello by Friedrich Grützmacher Northern Chamber Orchestra 1 Allegro molto (recit.) 4.07 Artistic Director and Leader, Nicholas Ward 2 - Adagio—Andante 8.21 3 Allegro moderato 10.12 Formed in 1967, the Northern Chamber Orchestra, based in Manchester, has established itself as one of England’s finest chamber orchestras giving concerts and appearing throughout the British Franz Danzi (1763-1826) Isles. The NCO tackles a wide range of repertoire from Corelli to Stravinsky and beyond. The Variations on ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni 7.42 members of the orchestra are distinguished chamber musicians who also play as principals with 4 Andante 5.17 other orchestras and regularly appear as soloists. 5 - Allegretto 2.25 With over thirty CDs to its name, the NCO is now known in every continent; the series of Haydn, Josef Reicha (1752-1795) Mozart and Mendelssohn symphonies have received outstanding reviews and their recording of Cello Concerto in A major Op.4 no.1 26.26 Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale was considered by BBC Radio 3’s CD Review programme to be the best English version. Its recording of Boccherini Cello Concertos nos. 9 – 12 with Raphael 6 I Allegro moderato 11.21 Wallfisch, has also received critical acclaim. This is the orchestra’s first recording for Nimbus. 7 II Largo maestoso 8.10 For more information about the NCO, visit their website www.ncorch.co.uk. 8 III Rondo. Allegretto 6.55 Nicholas Ward was born in Manchester in 1952 and started having violin lessons at the age of Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) eight; when he was twelve he formed his own string quartet, which remained together for five Concerto ‘Grand pot-pourri’ Op.20 (1808) 18.36 years until he entered the Royal Northern College of Music. Having studied with Yossi Zivoni in 9 Maestoso 3.01 Manchester and André Gertler in Brussels, he moved to London in 1977 where he joined the 10 - Andante 5.49 Melos Ensemble and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. After five years with the RPO, there 11 - Adagio—Allegro—Adagio 4.06 were two years playing mainly with the London Mozart Players and the Academy of St 12 - Finale. Allegro 5.40 Martin-in-the-Fields. Since 1984, Nicholas has divided most of his time between the City of Playing time 75.32 London Sinfonia, of which he is leader, and the Northern Chamber Orchestra, which he directs from the leader’s chair. Recorded by Nimbus Records 22-23 October 2009, St. Philip’s, Salford, UK © & c 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited www.wyastone.co.uk 2 NI 5868 NI 5868 7 Raphael Wallfisch is one of the most celebrated cellists It appears to have been Antonio Stradivari who was responsible for the standardisation of the performing on the international stage. He was born in dimensions of the ‘modern’ cello, in the first decade of the eighteenth century. As its London into a family of distinguished musicians, his mother popularity and status grew, the instrument was well fitted to play a significant role in the the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and his father the pianist transition from the Classical to the Romantic, the period represented by the music on this Peter Wallfisch. disc. In the Austrian and German traditions, the concertos which Haydn wrote for Joseph At an early age, Raphael was greatly inspired by hearing Weigl and Anton Kraft, principal cellists at Ezsterhazy, were important in establishing the Zara Nelsova play, and, guided by a succession of fine parameters of the new form, which underlie the concerto by Reicha. teachers including Amaryllis Fleming, Amadeo Baldovino and Derek Simpson, it became apparent that the cello was to Of the four composers in this present programme, two were themselves distinguished be his life's work. While studying with the great Russian cellists: Josef Reicha (1752-1795) and Franz Danzi (1763-1826). Intriguingly, the life and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in California, he was chosen to work of all four of these composers were touched by the presence of a fifth composer – perform chamber music with Jascha Heifetz in the informal Mozart. The Bohemian Josef Reicha studied the cello with Franz Joseph Werner while a recitals that Piatigorsky held at his home. choirboy in Prague in the 1760s; by 1774 he was accomplished enough to be appointed At the age of twenty-four he won the Gaspar Cassadó principal cellist in the Kapelle of the Swabian Prince (Fürst) Kraft Ernst von Oettingen- International Cello Competition in Florence. Since then he Wallerstein. Along with Anton Janitsch, the Prince’s first violinist, Reicha undertook has enjoyed a world-wide career. Teaching is one of Raphael's passions. He is in demand as a teacher all over the extensive concert tours. In October of 1777 the two of them dined with Mozart in Hohen- world holding the position of professor of cello in Altheim and in the January of the following year they were in Salzburg, where they joined Switzerland at the Zürich Winterthur Konservatorium and at Nannerl Mozart to play Mozart’s Piano Trio K. 254 and did so ‘most admirably’ according the Royal College of Music in London. to Leopold Mozart. It was probably to the concerto in A major (Op.4, No.1) that Leopold Raphael has recorded nearly every major work for his instrument. His extensive discography was referring when he wrote to his son to tell him that the work was ‘much in your own on EMI, Chandos, Black Box, ASV, Naxos and Nimbus explores both the mainstream concerto manner’. Certainly it is a fine piece, technically very demanding but full of delightful repertoire and countless lesser-known works by Dohnanyi, Respighi, Barber, Hindemith and melodies. A lilting allegro is followed by a stately adagio of real expressiveness and a closing Martinu, as well as Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Kabalevsky and Khachaturian. He has recorded a wide rondo and allegro of great freshness, in which one can hear echoes of both Mozart and Haydn. range of British cello concertos, including works by MacMillan, Finzi, Delius, Bax, Bliss, Britten, Moeran, Walton and Kenneth Leighton. Britain's leading composers have worked closely with Franz Danzi was the son of Innocenz Danzi, cellist in the orchestras of Mannheim and Raphael, many having written works especially for him including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Munich. He studied with his father, and at the age of fifteen joined the Mannheim orchestra Kenneth Leighton, James MacMillan, John Metcalf, Paul Patterson, Robert Simpson, Robert Saxton, before, in 1784, replacing his father as principal cello in Munich. In 1790 he married the Roger Smalley, Giles Swayne, John Tavener and Adrian Williams. soprano (and composer) Maria Margarethe (Gretl) Marchand who from 1781 to 1784 had Raphael plays a 1760 Gennaro Gagliano cello. (along with her younger brother) lived with the Mozart family in Salzburg as a pupil of He lives in London with his wife, the violinist Elizabeth, and has three children, Benjamin, Leopold – whose son was favourably impressed by her singing. She was present at Nannerl’s Simon, and Joanna wedding in 1784. Her own husband to be had met Mozart as a young man and the three met again after their marriage. In our own day we tend to overlook Danzi’s significance as an operatic composer, but he constitutes an important link in the developmental chain of 6 NI 5868 NI 5868 3 German opera, as the composer of operas which look back to Mozart and forward to Weber. might argue, however, that some of his most successfully ‘operatic’ writing is to be found in Doubly appropriate then that he should have written so charming a set of variations on a theme the eighth of his Violin Concertos, in A minor (Op.47), the score of which describes it as ‘in from Mozart’s Don Giovanni – ‘Là ci darem la mano’, the duettino for Don Giovanni and modo di scena cantante’. It is here played in an arrangement for cello made by the great Zerlina in Act I of the opera. Immediately one of the most popular numbers in the opera cellist and teacher Friedrich Grützmacher (1832-1903). The concerto was written in 1816, (reportedly encored three times at the premiere) and the theme for sets of variations by Chopin when Spohr and his family took a much needed break (after an exhausting schedule of and Beethoven too, Danzi’s treatment of ‘Là ci darem la mano’ articulates all the grace of the concerts) in the village of Thierachern, near Thun, in Switzerland.